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TVTranscript
00:00Antarctica, a vast, ice-locked continent, larger than the United States and Mexico combined.
00:14This is the coldest, windiest, most lifeless place on Earth, first explored by humans just
00:20100 years ago.
00:23Today, this vast wilderness has become a giant laboratory for the most important and cutting-edge
00:30science on our planet.
00:45Landing at the geographical South Pole, the southernmost place on Earth, feels like visiting
00:52another planet.
00:58Ahead lies the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, one of the most sophisticated scientific research
01:04facilities ever built.
01:12Despite sitting on top of the ice cap at an altitude of almost 10,000 feet, the station
01:17is maintained at a comfortable 20 degrees centigrade throughout the year.
01:29It hosts scientists from a whole range of disciplines, and is home to two of the most
01:35powerful telescopes on Earth.
01:39As well as housing a high-tech kit, the base provides a life-support system for people
01:45to rest, work and play in relative comfort.
01:50This astonishing building is a triumph of technology and engineering, and is as close
01:55to a space station as you can find anywhere on Earth.
02:04But a station this big needs support.
02:09Each summer, a convoy of tractors brings in supplies travelling along a snow road nicknamed
02:15the McMurdo South Pole Highway, a journey that takes more than four weeks.
02:22The goods they bring will help sustain the base for the next six months.
02:28Not long after the convoy departs, the sun sets for the last time.
02:33The Antarctic winter has begun.
02:37A long, dark night that will last for months.
02:47It's in the polar winter that the comfort and safety of the South Pole Station really
02:52comes into its own.
02:55Though the peak of research activity is in the summer, the station functions all the
03:00year round with a skeleton crew of 50 people who spend the whole winter here.
03:08They have risen to the challenge of making a habitable environment in one of the most
03:13inhospitable places on Earth with only a few people.
03:17They have risen to the challenge of making a habitable environment in one of the most
03:21inhospitable places on Earth with a surprising installation, a greenhouse.
03:28Here, fresh fruit and vegetables are grown under artificial lights while the rest of
03:33the continent is in darkness.
03:37Regulations prevent soil from being imported to the Antarctic, so the vegetables are grown
03:42using a system of hydroponics.
03:45Their roots are held directly in contact with water loaded with nutrients.
03:51Inside here, it's a comfortable 25 degrees Celsius.
03:56Relative humidity is about 55%.
04:00Outside, the temperature will be at least negative 30 degrees Celsius, and as the winter
04:05really starts to get going, it'll get as far down as negative 80 degrees Celsius.
04:11So it's pretty cold outside.
04:14And this will be the brightest environment one can find in Antarctica.
04:21This greenhouse is so high-tech that the team can control the amount of food and light the
04:27plants receive from the comfort of their office in the University of Arizona.
04:33But to really appreciate the achievements of modern science at the South Pole, one must
04:38go back 100 years to when science and exploration began here.
04:45In 1911, Robert Falcon Scott and his team built this hut as a supply base from which
04:51they would set off on their quest to be the first humans to reach the South Pole.
04:56Little has changed.
04:58It's as if they only left yesterday.
05:02Unlike modern visitors to the South Pole, these men had to bring everything they would
05:06need with them.
05:09Their crates of supplies came by ship, containing materials to build the hut, as well as food
05:15and clothes for the men.
05:17Ten thousand of these items still remain.
05:26All their food came in tins, which still lie on the shelves today, while the bunks that
05:32this 25-man team slept in during their first winter still look much as they did in the
05:38early 1900s.
05:40While the bunks that this 25-man team slept in during their first winter still look much
05:46as they did a century ago.
05:55While Scott and his men prepared for their race to the Pole, the team carried out a variety
06:00of scientific experiments.
06:02They brought with them equipment for studying meteorology, geology and collecting specimens.
06:11Over the years, the hut fell into disrepair until recently a team began work on the world's
06:17most remote restoration project.
06:23Their mission is to save the hut from being destroyed by the ice, as well as to discover
06:28more about early science and survival in Antarctica.
06:33The expedition was very well equipped with equipment and technology and there was also
06:38telephone, which they ran across the sea ice and linked various different places together.
06:44There's quite an elaborate system of switches and lights, interior, exterior electric light
06:49bulbs, which would have been very cutting edge indeed.
06:54And an enormous amount of scientific equipment as well, of all manner and all sorts.
07:01We're very fortunate that it survived in the condition it has.
07:04I mean, the hut was only intended to last for two, three years at most and here we are
07:09a century on.
07:10So we have this fabulous opportunity now, if we act quickly, to preserve what's here
07:16for future generations.
07:21Scott and his men left the hut on the 1st of November 1911 to begin their journey on
07:27foot to the South Pole.
07:30Ahead of them lay 800 miles of the most challenging terrain on the planet.
07:40The route they chose through the trans-Antarctic mountains took them up the mighty Beardmoor
07:46glacier.
07:48Slowly they traversed its appalling surface until finally they reached the ice plateau.
08:00They still faced a further 300 mile trek.
08:05The achievement of finally reaching the pole was tainted by the fact that the Norwegian
08:11Roald Amundsen had got there first.
08:17Scott and four others perished on the return journey.
08:2216 kilos of rocks and fossils, specimens that they had dragged back with them, were discovered
08:28close to where they died.
08:36Nobody stood at the pole again for 44 years until 1956 when the first scientific base
08:43was established here.
08:47A small party from the United States Navy landed supplies by plane so they could build
08:52the first Amundsen-Scott South Pole station.
08:56Six wooden huts in the midst of the barren ice cap.
09:01That same year, a science party overwintered, the first humans ever to experience the longest,
09:08darkest winter on earth.
09:12The old wooden huts were replaced in the 1970s with this gigantic dome.
09:18But this too has been superseded.
09:21Its panels dismantled and removed without trace in 2010, as every man-made item must
09:28be in Antarctica.
09:31The most recent South Pole station is designed to withstand extremes.
09:36Its curved sides funnel the wind and it stands on stilts that can be raised to accommodate
09:42the build-up of snow, which accumulates at a rate of 20 centimetres every year.
09:49All this is a far cry from the bleak white emptiness that confronted Amundsen and Scott.
09:55They would be truly amazed to see what exists here today.
10:04Science has come a long way in the last century, yet the goals of those who come here are in
10:10many ways still the same.
10:16This is a place where scientists look to the skies, releasing weather balloons twice a
10:21day to collect vital data about the level of ozone in our atmosphere.
10:32The South Pole is also said to have the cleanest air on earth, which has been sampled here
10:38at the Atmospheric Research Observatory for the last 50 years, giving a long-term baseline
10:44for gases such as carbon dioxide or CO2, data that is crucial to modern climate science.
10:53Climate change is a really hot topic right now and it's really important that we monitor
10:59the levels of CO2.
11:01Basically, we want to know how much it's increasing or how much it's decreasing.
11:06This long-term record really displays that very well, especially down here.
11:11We get a really good global average because there's no local influences.
11:15We can tell what the level is without being right next to a city.
11:29And it's not just the current climate which can be studied here.
11:37The ice at the South Pole is the perfect place to investigate our past.
11:45This is the IceCube facility, the powerhouse for an enormous underground system of sensors
11:52that uses the pristine Antarctic ice as a natural laboratory in which to study the beginning
11:58of the whole universe.
12:01IceCube covers a cubic kilometre but is buried deep below the surface.
12:09A heated drill is used to melt holes one and a half miles down into the ice cap,
12:14a process that takes about 48 hours.
12:18Into the holes are lowered chains of photodetectors, which look for tiny ghost-like particles
12:24passing through the ice.
12:27The particles are called neutrinos, formed billions of years ago after the birth of the universe.
12:35Neutrinos are extremely difficult to detect, but as they pass through the ice,
12:40they occasionally crash into atoms,
12:43sparking tiny flashes of blue light that reveal their existence.
12:48IceCube is a neutrino telescope, so it's like a regular telescope.
12:52We're trying to make an image of the universe, but instead of using light, we're using particles.
12:58What they learn from ice cubes is that they can be used to study the universe.
13:03At the end of the day, we're not doing a real telescope,
13:06we're trying to make an image of the universe,
13:08but instead of using light, we're using particles.
13:12What they learn from mapping the direction of these particles
13:15will provide a fascinating insight into the cosmos and the very beginning of time.
13:21While Antarctica's ice can help us understand our past,
13:25it also holds information which is very relevant to the present.
13:51This long-range DC-3 plane was built in 1942,
13:56but has been fitted with very modern ground-penetrating radar,
14:00which can effectively see through the ice.
14:07The plane is a mobile lab from which scientists can map the miles of unexplored landscape,
14:13not just at the surface, but deep below, where the ice is.
14:17Not just at the surface, but deep below, where the ice meets rock.
14:25This airplane is called an aerogeophysical platform,
14:28and a platform like this allows you to combine multiple data sets.
14:35In this case, we have 14 instruments operating simultaneously,
14:38and each of them has a role in characterizing the geology and the glaciology
14:46in the Antarctic region that we're flying in right now.
14:49Much of the ice that covers Antarctica is over two and a half miles thick.
14:54It cloaks mountain ranges, volcanoes and lakes,
14:57and in places, its weight depresses the land far below sea level.
15:02It's just incredible, the things that are down there
15:05that you would just never know without these instruments.
15:08When you look out the window, all you see is ice, as far as the eye can see,
15:13and you very well may be flying over a mountain range the size of the Rockies.
15:21Being in Antarctica is just a very special experience.
15:24It's an honor to be a part of a program that is acquiring such important data
15:32for building an understanding of our natural environment that's hard to reach.
15:38Far from being static, Antarctica's ice is on the move,
15:42flowing out from the thickest part of the ice sheet towards the coast.
15:48What's more, the ice is changing fast.
15:51It's hard to imagine, but if all this ice melted,
15:54it would contribute more than 60 meters to our global sea levels.
16:00Scientific programs like this one are vital.
16:03We need to know the volume of this ice and better understand how it behaves
16:08before we can predict the long-term future of this ice cap
16:12and what that, in turn, means for the rest of us.
16:30The place where change is happening most rapidly is around the edges of the ice sheet,
16:36where the ice flows out over the sea.
16:41And that is where much scientific attention is now being focused.
16:48Well, I've been working down here for 25 years,
16:51but I have never felt such a sense of urgency as I do now.
16:56I have never felt such a sense of urgency as I do with this particular project.
17:01We know that sea level is rising right now.
17:04It has been rising for the last century.
17:07But it's rising faster now than it was before.
17:10And we expect that acceleration to continue.
17:13To understand what the ocean is doing to the ice, we have to get into the ocean.
17:18And the path to get to the ocean is through that ice shelf.
17:22So we use a hot water drill to make a hole, just melt a hole, all the way through the ice shelf.
17:27And through that hole, then, we can deploy our ocean profiler.
17:33This ocean profiler is a specially designed recording device
17:38which is dropped through the ice sheet to the ocean below.
17:42It's a unique and expensive piece of equipment.
17:46It's about as tense a deployment as I've ever made.
17:50There's no spares of this thing.
17:53So far, so good.
17:55But you never really know how it's all going to work out
17:58until you're out here in the field doing it.
18:00Over the coming months, the ocean profiler
18:03will transmit information about what's happening below this ice shelf
18:07back to a lab in Monterey.
18:10It's going to be telling us the type of water that's coming in underneath the ice
18:14and the type of water that leaves the ice.
18:17And from that difference, we know what it's done to the ice,
18:21how much ice has been melted.
18:23Because it's that melting of ice that thins the ice shelf.
18:26And that ice shelf, a thinner ice shelf, can't hold the ice sheet back as well.
18:31So once the ice shelf thins, that glacier accelerates.
18:35What we're doing down here is so important
18:38because sea level all around the world will be affected as Antarctica shrinks.
18:44Almost half of the world's population lives close to the coast
18:48and is affected by changes in sea level.
18:51Antarctica may feel like the other end of the planet,
18:55but anything that happens here affects us all.
18:58We may think of this continent as being frozen in time,
19:02but in fact, the ice has a life of its own.
19:06And nowhere is that more clearly illustrated than at the South Pole itself,
19:11which, before and since mankind visited it, has continued to be on the move.
19:18All right, first and foremost, I'd like to thank each and every one of you for showing up here today.
19:23It's fantastic to see such a large turnout for these traditions of the South Pole.
19:28What we're here today for is the annual remarking of the geographic South Pole.
19:34Now, as you all know, the South Pole Station, our home,
19:38sits on top of a 3,000 metre deep polar ice cap.
19:42And that ice cap moves at about a rate of 10 metres every year,
19:46or if you prefer, probably about 2.7 centimetres every day.
19:51It is my honour to present to you guys, on behalf of the Winter Overcrew of 2009,
19:58the geographic South Pole marker for 2010.
20:04Whoa!
20:07It carries the inscription of the name of every member of the Winter Overcrew.
20:12With this, I would like to invite all of you to participate in relocating this marker,
20:19the new, accurately placed geographic South Pole.
20:25The ceremonial marker and Antarctic Treaty state flags
20:29serve as a reminder that Antarctica belongs to no one,
20:33but it's reserved for the interests of science and the progress of all mankind.